Cortical inhibitory interneurons control sensory processing

• Published in: Current opinion in neurobiology Vol. 46; pp. 200 - 207
• Main Authors: Wood, Katherine C, Blackwell, Jennifer M, Geffen, Maria Neimark
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2017
• Subjects: Animals; Humans; Interneurons - physiology; Neural Inhibition - physiology; Neural Pathways - physiology; Sensation - physiology; Sensorimotor Cortex - physiology
• ISSN: 0959-4388; 1873-6882; 1873-6882
• DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2017.08.018

•Distinct cortical interneurons control sensory perception.•Modulating cortical inhibition sharpens or broadens stimulus tuning in sensory cortex.•Locomotion increases activity in visual, and suppresses activity in auditory cortex.•Future studies to combine targeted perturbation of activity with recurrent models. Inhibitory and excitatory neurons form intricate interconnected circuits in the mammalian sensory cortex. Whereas the function of excitatory neurons is largely to integrate and transmit information within and between brain areas, inhibitory neurons are thought to shape the way excitatory neurons integrate information, and they exhibit context-specific and behavior-specific responses. Over the last few years, work across sensory modalities has begun unraveling the function of distinct types of cortical inhibitory neurons in sensory processing, identifying their contribution to controlling stimulus selectivity of excitatory neurons and modulating information processing based on the behavioral state of the subject. Here, we review results from recent studies and discuss the implications for the contribution of inhibition to cortical circuit activity and information processing.